Mainly Poncho...

Poncho's leg is still giving him trouble, although this afternoon it seemed a little better. He is not helping himself. He still gets very excited when it is time to go out, leaping up from his bed and rushing out to the lobby. He then twirls and hops about with his sore paw in the air. He is using it when we are walking on soft surfaces such as the lawn and verges, but he is still hopping a lot of the time when we are walking on the road. Strangely it doesn't seem to bother him at all if there is something interesting to sniff. He also still wants to be first out the door and leading the way, and is amazingly adept at rushing onwards on three paws.

We have taken them both up to the field again a couple to times, letting Jen run around but keeping Poncho on the lead. It has helped to release some of Jen's excess energy as our walks have short to say the least.

He finished his course of tablets this morning. Luckily they are like treats, so we had no problem getting him to take them. On the contrary, Jen looked quite upset that she was not getting them as well.

We will see how he is tomorrow. If there is no more improvement I think it will be another trip to the vet.


I spoke too soon re the garden. I had been forewarned as Paul noticed J Parker had taken another payment from the credit card. The Japanese anemones turned up the next day, along with the missing cultural instructions. I read them avidly to find out what I should have done, but other than telling me the preferred location of the plants there was no clue to planting depths so I am still none the wiser.

I braved the wind and cold, and planted the anemones in one of the cleared seed beds in the long bank. Hopefully I will be able to transplant them next year into the high bank. I also covered the crowns of the paeonies with a layer of compost, as a hard frost was expected and came to pass over the weekend.


I have been keeping the bird feeders topped up now that there is less for the birds to eat in the hedgerows. I am competing with all of my neighbours - we must have some of the best fed birds in the country. The feeders are located so that I can see them from the lounge, and on most days I am rewarded by various tits and robins. On Saturday, however, I was totally stunned to see a woodpecker at the peanut feeder.


Preparations for Christmas are progressing well. My sister (Susan), her husband (Charlie) and son (Daniel) are coming for a few days. We have put our order in at the butcher shop in Chirnside. All the cards have been written and are ready to post. Most of the presents have been bought, including Paul's after a trip into Berwick today.


Scrabble revision has also been progressing. I have completed the top 6500 one solution eights. I had always stopped at 6000 in previous sessions, so have added a few new words to my repertoire. I am now going back through 4000-6500. I think I have been over-ambitious in my target of 500 in 50 minutes, but I am definitely getting better.

I have an appointment booked on Wednesday to get my typhoid jab for Bangalore...